Everyone wants to produce more with less. If you have heard the expressions “lean” and “agile,” you may think they refer to weight loss and flexibility or associate them with software development—and you may wonder how they apply to internal audit. The Agile Manifesto’s core values drive a mindset that focuses on creating results that address stakeholder and user needs. Being "lean" means targeting areas of waste, i.e., unnecessary, non-value-added activities, and eliminating them.
This article describes agile techniques in audit and identifies unproductive activities that can slow down an audit. It also outlines four things you can do to be lean, agile and IPPF-compliant, even if you don’t want to—or culturally cannot—adopt the entire Agile Manifesto.